but the fact that we brought in both Evan Hankins and Caleb Strawhecker after Carter had committed in late May leads me to believe that he wasn't necessarily viewed as a sure-fire rotation/starter level player. That's not to say he can't or won't carve out some type of role on next year's team but there is certainly a lot of redundancy with lefty hitters at the two positions he projects to play at. I also wonder about his defensive ability at catcher. He made some really good strides with some of the core defensive stats this past year (no errors in 152 chances, 6 passed balls and throwing out 24% of runners) but the amount of passed balls he allowed in 2025 (22 passed balls in 55 games) and the amount he allowed in 2024 summer league action (13 passed balls in 11 games at catcher) is a bit concerning. As you noted, his hit tool shows promise with his performance at the JUCO level and in summer league plays in 2024, but his stats at the JUCO level are almost identical to that of Chris Sparber who was a similar type of hitter coming out of JUCO that had limited impact in his time at VT. And historically, other than Kerry Carpenter and Jared Davis...we haven't had much success with JUCO hitters in the Coach Szefc era. Either way, it seems like we have a lot of solid options with experience to choose from in building out our offensive and defensive alignment which will hopefully bode well for an even better offense in 2027.